This commentary appraises NAIRALAND , other popular social networking portals in Nigeria, with special focus on the debutants NEEKSTA, the latest online social networking, information sharing service.
The yardstick for appraising these social media portals is highlighted in the definition below,
Wikipedia gives an encompassing definition of what a Social platform is, “Social media refers to the means of interaction among people in which they create, share, and/or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks”. It further described social media platforms as “interactive platforms through which individuals and communities share, co-create, discuss, and modify user-generated content.”
NAIRALAND AND OTHERS
Nairaland is arguably the leading Social Forum in Nigeria; it is ranked the 7th popular portal (most visited website) in Nigeria, and has a global rank of 921 by Alexa rating (Web Information Company). At the time of writing this commentary, it had 1624 Members and 3751 Guests online – a real time count within a period of 5 Minutes.
In my opinion, Nairaland is an online version of Nigeria, “Nigeria put on the Web”. It does not stop there, It is OLX, tradestable, Naij – all put into One. I also call it an OPEN FORUM. I have coined the term OPEN and CLOSED from my experience on different Forums.
A good example of a closed Forum is forum.naij.com A Forum where there is “no freedom of expression”, inadequate sections/categories, unfriendly, “unprofessional administrators”.
OLX, Trade Stable are online portals where sellers meet buyers. Where an individual can put up items up for sell, create awareness for events – at no cost to the Advertiser. Naij, Olx, trade stable do not allow users to share urls on their portals.
I consider this development as a downside which restrains sharing of information by their users. On portals like facebook, wordpress, nairaland, neeksta, it is common to find users share urls on forums for the benefit of other users.
I am taken aback when I see “url unfriendly” social media portals (naij, olx, trade stable, nanaija etc) share urls on facebook, twitter.
I registered an account with Nairaland late last year and I must say it has lived up to the definition of a social media. I have noticed that a help page is “missing” on Nairaland. If permitted by the administrators, I will come up with a help page for it new users; It will be my contribution as a user.
As a social media analyst, early adaptor of many social media portals, I see neeksta.com as a complete definition of a social media portal, a platform where sharing of url is legalized and given a nomenclature (Neeks).
You can read more about from their help page (a feature that is not available on many Nigerian owned social media portal).
What is Neeksta
Neeksta is a service designed to promote valuable information, news content in Nigeria and across the globe. Its content is provided by registered members.
How to Share on Neeksta – Three Easy Steps
HOW TO SHARE NEEKS – INFORMATION ON NEEKSTA.
3 SIMPLE STEPS
1. Submit Post Title or Post Url (eg www.neeksta.com/howtopost)
2. Provide Main Content, Choose content category, tag post.
3. Optional – Attach image by uploading from it from your device or by its URL (eg. www.laugh.com/teeth.jpg).
Submit Post.
You do not have a neeksta account? What are you waiting for? Register now http://neeksta.com/register/
Share| Discover| Connect.
Comparing Neeksta and Existing Nigeria Social information, Networking Portals
The layout and presentation of information on Neeksta stands it out among the existing Social networking sites.
Features like friendly help page, unique news items (no duplicate news item), content voting, ability to save a favorite news item, rate user activity (reputation point) are not common features on the existing platforms.
One feature that endears me to neeksta is the ability of it users to filter the information displayed on their account. This implies that, a user can customize their account.
Users can share content URLs, provide links to their social networking accounts; many Nigerian social networking sites are quick to remove, delete or ban users who share Urls on their portals. This development will no doubt favour the url friendly debutants.
Neeksta is ideal for bloggers and avid readers. It has a lot to offer entrepreneurs, government agencies, corporate organisations – a free zone to expand their business frontiers, meet with prospective clients, consumer, disseminate information.
A chat with a member of the Neeksta team revealed that plugins for automatic, easy sharing of News, social information by registered users will soon be available to users for deployment on their blogs, web portals. When this happens, users can share information directly from their web portals to Neeksta.
Given the features and outlook of Neeksta, it promises to revolutionize information sharing and social interaction in Nigeria and across the globe.
